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The Ancients and the Forge Resplendent
The Ancients and the Forge Resplendent (Requires 2 Story Elements) Misty tales and poems long since lost tell of an ancient race, a mighty civilization that spanned the globe. These people could take many forms, wielded powerful and impossible magic, and possessed ships that could sail in the skies, medicines that could cure any ill, and weapons that could level cities. Their architecture was a thing of beauty and grace since unmatched, completely covering some landmasses and even extending onto - and under - the oceans and seas. It isn't all the idle pursuit of bored bards and academics seeking patronage, of course, although the phrase "unlocking the secrets of the ancients" gets thrown around so much that if someone actually did figure out the whole story, they'd have a hard time finding an audience that would take them seriously. Certainly, some structures still exist - on land, underground, at the highest mountaintops and at the bottoms of various bodies of water. And of course, many of their artifacts still survive, should you be so lucky as to see one. And for that matter, the last surviving records of the High Mages indicate that the study of their Art goes back much further than the mages themselves. What's missing are the connections, the links that make everything make sense. Your average taxpayer has probably heard of them, and your average Sailor certainly has. People know that the ancients probably led more interesting lives than they do, and find them vaguely interesting and altogether a little sinister - and of course, completely pointless to invest heavy thought in. Most people figure they got a little too ambitious with magic they shouldn't have been toying with and wiped themselves out in a grand, hilarious explosion of arcane improbability - this theory being popular primarily because it fits the existing prejudices against magic and allows everyone to feel pretty smug about the whole thing. Ancient, magical, mysterious, and irrelevant - that's the long and short of it for most people. This theory is certainly supported by what happened to the High Mages, which is a matter of considerably less mystery, but roughly the same percentage of fatalities. The real truth behind the ancients makes far more sense than a race smart enough to build floating cities but too stupid to not wipe themselves out right in the middle of their own golden age. And that truth can be summarized in three words. The Forge Resplendent Not the words you were expecting, eh? That can be forgiven - the Forge Resplendent is, after all, a creation myth. You know... how the first people were made? How the first souls were crafted? It's called by many names, but it always comes down to being the beginning of civilization. But that's a fable. No civilization has ever been made by the Forge Resplendent - because the Forge isn't the beginning of civilization, it's the end. Everything in the world is destroyed to fuel the beginning of a new one. Or... almost everything. The Forge itself has no set form, no one specific design or blueprints. But every society ever made on this world has reached the point of being able to construct that final device, or artifact, or spell, or creature, that would consume all life and artifice, all over the globe, then turn back the clock and start over - almost always with a sign near it that said "In Case of Emergency," as a bit of grim humor. And every society ever made has encountered a threat, invariably from within, so great that the need to reset everything has arisen. But like all tools, even abstract ones, the Forge is getting old - and wearing out. And each time it gets used, it doesn't clean up quite as thoroughly as the previous time. And so things are left behind. The prior civilization was a predominantly magical one, like so many before it, mixed in with technology-heavy societies, religious oligarchies, unified empires, divided nationalist worlds, and everything in between. This particular society managed to get much further than most, developing a wide variety of powerful tools and weapons, and even creating entirely new species. Of course, very few records survive their own demise, so it is unclear what specifically caused the activation of the Forge Resplendent, but as has already been explained, a few things survived. - For one thing, the architecture - it didn't always end up in the same place it started, of course. The sky city of Aldursech is now buried three miles below Farin's Crossing, for one, and the sea city of Joma Rin is splattered all across the mountains of Florin... - For another thing, the artifacts - powerful magical items that no supernaturally-inclined professional in this age can figure out. Perhaps its for the best... - Not to mention the Kodari, who remember a group known to them only as 'The Makers,' and a time when they, long ago, flourished - now lost to history. - The Driftfolk, naturally, do not remember ever having a home on land. This is a ridiculous claim - unless you can recall a time when it was possible to live on a floating city for all of your days... and how necessary it would be to turn nomadic when the last of these floating island havens finally sank... - The elves, too, have the dimmest of memories, or maybe the memory of a memory, of beings so advanced as to be godlike. And certainly they began in this new civilization with a house edge, and knowledge that came from somewhere... - Some spirits of great power can be found, still tethered to what meant the most to them. Some of them are known for giving magic eyeballs to those who can find them. Or drop curses - spirits aren't the most consistent of beings. - And finally, almost forgotten, are those artifacts that are more than artifacts. Never before has the Forge Resplendent been sloppy enough to allow spirits and souls to slip past the dawn of a new age, but never before has a society realized what the existence of the Forge might mean - because the most recent empire to utilize its terrible potential is the first to be brazen enough to have its cake and eat it too. And so it was that they created the Artifact Spirits, foremost among them those weapons known as the Compass Rose Swords, each of them a copy of a leader or figure of note in the Ancient World, one for each of the eight corners of that mythic society. They were made with the express intent of surviving the activation of the Forge Resplendent - but the ultimate goal is as yet unknown. Nowadays, they do what they can to alter the current timeline, seeking out figures of note. Wherever one goes, a hero is born, events are reshaped, and the world is altered in accordance with an agenda known only unto them. Make no mistake, the name "Compass Rose" was not chosen at random - normal compasses guide travelers; this compass guides entire nations. There's more to know about the Ancients, of course, and the civilizations that were Ancient to those Ancients. But the important thing to keep in mind is that everyone is ignorant of how directly their lives are about to be affected by a people long since gone. And what you don't know can most definitely hurt you. Ancient? Certainly. Magical? To an astounding degree. Mysterious? By definition! Irrelevant? Not even close. So you may want to take a closer look at your history, and at the faded writings in the ruins near your home. You might want to make sure that you're ready for anything. You know, in case of emergency.